


Midnight Snack

by pchberrytea



Category: Fallout 3
Genre: Angst and Feels, F/M, Pining, and rum, can't be having a crush on some nosebleed while he's running a gang, the kid has a rep to protect alright?, we are too proud to admit feelings so we just sort of blame rum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27860705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pchberrytea/pseuds/pchberrytea
Summary: Butch DeLoria hates the taste of strawberry.The night before the events of “Escape!”, when crap was still mostly normal, he comes across Vault 101’s resident nosebleed in the kitchens practicing for the vault cake bake-off. Typical Butch-style annoyance ensues, ‘cuz who wouldn’t take a golden opportunity to bug Lainey?Fast forward a couple of nights and Lainey’s gone, vault security has regained some control and everyone’s locked down tight under mandatory curfew, and maybe worst of all Butch is friggin’ starving. The only option available is a slice of cake left behind for him that he hasn’t touched.And y’know what? Maybe strawberry ain’t so bad.
Relationships: Butch DeLoria/Female Lone Wanderer
Comments: 8
Kudos: 25





	Midnight Snack

**Author's Note:**

> This was my part of a collaboration for a fandom mini-bang on Tumblr. Some wonderful art for it can be found [right here!](https://euclidsefinder.tumblr.com/post/636466782615519232/pchberrytea-my-contribution-to-the-art-side-of)

Butch DeLoria freakin’ hated the taste of strawberry. 

Well, it probably didn’t taste the way it was s’posed to, anyway. Right? At least, not so long after those bombs dropped. Yeah, those dweebs that all worked down in the vault’s hydro-pono-garden-thing grew ‘em. Sure. They grew all kinds of garbage ‘cuz Vault-Tec left all kinds of seeds behind when they built this place. 

Strawberry, though? _Blech_. Stuff still didn’t taste right, so why the hell did his stomach have to be growlin’ while he laid around here thinkin’ about it? 

Unable to get to sleep, he rolled over in his bed and leaned to snatch his Pip-Boy off his nightstand: 2:03 A.M., which was freakin’ bullshit. _All_ of this was bullshit and it started, what, three days ago? He gave an irritated sigh and rolled onto his other side, pulling the Vault-Tec blue blankets with him to gather into an angry heap and while he glared at the empty wall he now faced, he thought about it. 

Overseer went nuts and stuck everybody on lockdown super early this morning, shit had hit the fan late-late last night, but the night before that? 

Yeah... 

He frowned when his stomach growled again. 

_Strawberries_. 

* * *

_That_ night was mostly normal. 

Like any other day after a long shift working in the ~~salon~~ barbershop, he met up with his boys to talk a little. Plan a little. Drink a little. They might have even liberated The _Man_ of a couple confiscated liquor bottles when Wally got his brother to smuggle ‘em out of security. 

Then, maybe the Snakes all shared a little more to drink. Who was to say? How was Butch supposed to know that the rum he’d stuck in his jacket was bootlegged? 

That’s what he was gonna say if any of the other officers asked him about it on the way home, but, uh... he didn’t make it home. ‘Least, not right away. 

See, like any other _normal_ night he might’ve been out drinking, he started thinking with his stomach while he dragged himself back to the dorms to crash. What wasn’t so normal was that it was the middle of the night and something was smellin’ good. 

_Real_ good. 

Besides that, all that was sitting around in the DeLoria dorm was more liquor and a couple cans of cram. His stupid stomach growled again to remind him that he was freakin’ _starving_ , and poor, buzzed Butch found himself hoping that whoever was up in the kitchen could be sweet-talked out of a midnight snack. He figured if they weren’t in the mood to share, he could just distract ‘em a little bit. Swipe some grub and jet before they even knew what they were missing. 

Sounded like a solid plan, at the time. 

He vaguely remembered popping the collar on his vault suit and making sure his jacket was straight before he made his way toward the kitchen. For all he knew, it might’ve been one of the girls in there and there was no way that any of them would say no to _his_ handsome mug, right? 

R- 

Right. 

But then it wasn’t _just_ one of the girls he’d found bent down to take stuff out of the oven. It was Lainey, and Lainey was... well. She was gone now. 

* * *

Whatever. 

He rolled out of bed shaking his head and told himself that it didn’t really matter, at least not until he reached for his desk chair. That was where his leather jacket was supposed to be, ‘cept that was gone now, too. 

Gone with Lainey, but _what. **Ever**_. 

It _didn’t_ matter. He had a spare jacket stashed in the trunk at the foot of his bed, _anyway_. Y’know, just in case that old one got all jacked up during a rumble or somethin’. All it needed was to be cleaned up a little and fixed up with a signature Tunnel Snake patch, and Butch would be out there getting back at the Overseer in no time. 

All he needed was his Ma’s sewing kit. 

He slipped out of his room and crept through the dark of the small DeLoria dorm to find that kit, stopping just short of the open door to his Mom’s bedroom. Soft snores drifted through the air, and hard as he worked to protect his rep in the rest of the vault, he just couldn’t bring himself to barge in there and start digging through her stuff. Not while she was resting. 

And her leg was all hurt. 

‘Cuz of the roaches. 

That Lainey took out for him. 

Jeez this was dumb. He wasn’t going soft or something, was he? 

* * *

_“Ugh, what do you want, Butch?”_

‘Course it had to be that nosebleed in the kitchens that night, and of _course_ he decided to stick around and mess with her. It was a golden opportunity to get under her skin, as far as he’d been concerned. He distinctly remembered how he leaned across the kitchen counter and shot his best, most devilish grin at her, then how she’d put one hand on her hip and rolled her big, prissy, _too-good-for-the-Butch-man_ brown eyes at him. 

He stared at her like a dope. It was probably the rum’s fault. 

“ _Nothin_ _’_ ,” he’d finally said when he reached over to stick his finger in a bowl of something sweet-looking she was mixing up. Icing, he’d decided. For that cake she’d pulled out of the oven. “ _Just seein’ what my best girl is doing up this late_.” 

“ _Best girl_?” she’d snorted, and swatted his hand away from the bowl. 

“ _Sure, if you_ _wanna_ _share_.” 

She laughed at him. _Laughed_ at him, like he was _joking_ , before she said “ _No way_!” 

“ _C’mon. Just let me lick the spoon or_ _somethin'_ _,”_ he’d almost whined, so what did she do ? 

Looked him dead in the eyes and flashed _her_ best, most devilish grin at _him_ , and then? 

She. Licked. The. Spoon. 

All giggling, like some kind of punk. She probably thought she outsmarted him or something, like when they were little and she spit on that sweet roll. Difference was, he wasn’t as worried about her nerd-cooties anymore. 

He was way more worried that he’d get caught looking at a little bit of icing stuck on her lip, which was maybe sorta cute, and rolled his own eyes for even _thinking_ that. Christ. This was _definitely_ the rum’s fault. 

“ _You’re_ _gonna_ _pay for that_!” he’d said, grabbing for the spoon. She was too fast for him to catch it, but only ‘cuz she’d been on the other side of the counter. He ended up grabbing the whole bowl of icing and hopping over the counter – chasing her and her spoon all over the kitchen. Until he caught her. 

Or maybe...she let him catch her, all giggling and breathless, and suddenly he didn’t really know what he was gonna do with that bowl of icing in the first place. He also didn’t know if he could really blame the rum for the backflips his stomach had been doing. 

* * *

He almost had it figured out for himself, when that stupid stomach of his decided to growl again. Same way now as it did that night, but he didn’t want to think about it anymore. 

At some point, Butch had wandered through their tiny DeLoria dorm and stopped in front of their tiny DeLoria icebox to stare inside at a slice of cake left in the cooler just for him – she'd even given him another one for his mom, too. 

That’s all he could do for a minute was stare at this stupid piece of cake. Like some dope. The worst part was that there was no rum left to blame anything on this time, like he did when he decided that kissing Lainey ended up being the rum’s fault. 

Even though the kisses were sweet. 

And they tasted like icing. 

And maybe he _was_ going soft. 

And... yeah. She’d ended up ruining the cake by putting strawberries on it after all that stuff had happened. _Probably_ ruining it. He didn’t know if he cared, anymore, ‘ cuz he was hungry and Lainey was _gone,_ and all he’d even tasted was the icing. 

He decided that he’d try it, ‘cuz who knew? 

Maybe strawberries really weren’t so bad, after all. 


End file.
